Call distribution

ABSTRACT

A service management system is provided which allows call distribution using a call plan to be executed using several service execution platforms from different manufacturers, which may be associated with different network types. Associated methods are also provided.

[0001] The present invention relates to call distribution in acommunications network, in particular for telemarketing services.

[0002] Telemarketing services involve, for example, a retailer operatinga call answering centre in which a number of call answering agents takecalls from customers. Large call answering centres may be split overseveral sites and may employ some hundreds of call answering agents.Typically, customers dial a single number, which may be charged at aparticular rate, for example, the rate applicable to a local call, andeach call is automatically directed within the network to an appropriateone of the sites, and subsequently to one of the call answering agentswithin the site. The system which is responsible for distributing thecalls between different sites may use a call plan. A call plan comprisesa decision tree which is pre-programmed with criteria to be used inselecting a destination. For example, one criterion might be the time ofday at which the call is made, with out-of-hours calls all beingdirected to one particular site, a particular ratio of calls may bedirected to different sites or calls may be directed to a particularsite in dependence upon the geographical origin of the call.

[0003] Intelligent network platforms capable of providing suchdistribution of calls are provided by many equipment suppliers. Eachequipment supplier usually provides a support system for theirparticular platform. Such support systems typically provide facilitiessuch as call plan editing and reporting facilities so that a customercan monitor call completion performance, for example, and geographicmapping of calling line identities.

[0004] In order to provide all the services required by a particularcustomer a telecommunications operator (also referred to herein as theservice provider) may provide services using a plurality of serviceexecution platforms. The problem with this approach is that instead ofhaving a single virtual network the customer then has to partition theirvirtual network into a plurality of virtual networks each associatedwith one of a plurality of service execution platforms. In addition tothis the customer is faced with having to design several call plansusing different interfaces and editors. This results in data duplicationand re-entry and thus errors are likely to occur. Also reportingfacilities are not integrated so the customer receives several differenttypes of reports.

[0005] According the present invention there is provided a servicemanagement system for implementing a call plan using a plurality ofservice facilities suitable for use in a communications networkcomprising: a plurality of rules describing how a plurality of servicefacilities maps on to a plurality of service execution platforms; aprocessor for partitioning the call plan into a plurality of call plansegments in dependence upon said rules, each call plan segment usingservice facilities supported by a single service platform; adding aninterplatform routing node to said call plan segments, the routing nodecausing transfer of calls from one service platform to another serviceplatform; and transferring the call plan segments to the serviceexecution platform upon which those facilities are supported.

[0006] Preferably the interplatform routing node causes a call to beforwarded from a first service platform to a non-geographic numberassociated with a second service execution platform.

[0007] The service management system may further comprise a reportmanager for providing a consolidated report relating to call statisticsfor a plurality of service execution platforms.

[0008] According to a second aspect of the invention there is provided amethod of partitioning a call plan into call plan segments in which acall plan comprises a plurality of service facilities, resulting in anincoming call being routed to one of a plurality of endpoints, and inwhich each service facility is associated with a service executionplatform, and in which each endpoint is associated with a serviceexecution platform; the method comprising the steps of constructing aplurality of call plan segments comprising contiguous service facilitiesassociated with each particular service platform; adding aninterplatform routing node between each pair of contiguous servicefacilities where one service facility of such a pair is associated witha first platform and the other service facility of that pair isassociated with a second platform; and adding an interplatform routingnode between each service facility associated with a first platformwhich routes the call to an endpoint associated with a second platformnode.

[0009] Preferably the interplatform routing node causes a call to beforwarded from a first service platform to a non-geographic numberassociated with a second service execution platform.

[0010] According to a third aspect of the invention there is alsoprovided a method of consolidating call statistic reports from aplurality of service execution platforms, a call statistic reportcomprising a plurality of entries relating to a time interval, eachentry comprising an effective call count and an lost call count, themethod comprising the steps of determining a consolidated effective callcount being equal to the maximum effective call count in the pluralityof call statistic reports for a given time interval; and determining aconsolidated lost call count being equal to the sum of the lost callcount in the plurality of call statistic reports for said time interval.

[0011] According to another aspect of the invention there is provided amethod of call 20 routing comprising the steps of receiving a call;routing the call according to a call plan segment associated with afirst service execution platform; forwarding the call to a secondservice execution platform; and routing the call according to a secondcall plan segment associated with the second service execution platform.

[0012] Systems embodying the present invention will now be described indetail, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanyingdrawings in which:

[0013]FIG. 1 is a schematic illustration of a telecommunicationsnetwork;

[0014]FIG. 2 is an illustration of a call plan;

[0015]FIG. 3 illustrates a telecommunications network having a pluralityof service execution platforms each of which is associated with aservice management system;

[0016]FIG. 4 illustrates a telecommunications network having a pluralityof service execution platforms associated with a single servicemanagement system;

[0017]FIG. 5 illustrates a call plan which has been partitioned intocall plan segments;

[0018]FIG. 6 illustrates the call plan of FIG. 5 with an additionalinterplatform routing node;

[0019]FIG. 7 illustrates the call plan segments of FIG. 5 as the wouldbe implemented upon two separate service execution platforms;

[0020]FIGS. 8a and 8 b show reports from two service executionplatforms, and FIG. 8c shows a resulting merged call plan; and

[0021]FIG. 9 and FIG. 10 are flow charts illustrating the operation of amethod according to this invention.

[0022]FIG. 1 illustrates a telecommunications 13 network which uses anIN (Intelligent Network) architecture includes a plurality ofintelligent network platforms 1 a, 1 b, 1 c, also referred to herein asservice execution platforms. Examples of these are the Cisco IntelligentCall Manager, the Marconi Phoenix Intelligent Network System, the BTNetwork Intelligence Platform, and the MCI WorldCom DistributedApplications Platform. The intelligent network platforms 1 a, 1 b, 1 care connected to trunk digital main switching units (DMSU's) 2, 3 and todigital local exchanges (DLE's) 4,5. At certain points during theprogress of a call, the DMSU's and DLE's transfer control of the call toan intelligent network platform 1 a, 1 b or 1 c. The intelligent networkplatforms carry out functions such as number translation and provide agateway to additional resources, for example to a voice messagingplatform. In the present example, the intelligent network platforms 1 a,1 b, 1 c are arranged to use a call plan to direct calls made to anparticular number to one of a plurality of answering centres 7, 8, 9, 11at different sites. In other embodiments of the invention the serviceexecution platform may comprise a soft switch such as the NetCentrex orNortel system for use with voice over IP networks. Thetelecommunications network may span continents and the answering centres7, 8, 9, 11 may be in different countries.

[0023]FIG. 2 illustrates a simple call plan in which a day of week basedrouting node 30 causes a call to be routed to a particular answeringpoint 32, for example a message service or an answering centre whichoperates at weekends, if the call is made on a Saturday or a Sunday. Ifthe call is made during Monday to Friday then the call is processedaccording to a proportional distribution node 31 which causes 60% ofcalls to be routed to one answering centre x 34, and 40% of calls to berouted to another answering centre y 33. Nodes which result in the callbeing routed to a particular destination, such as answering point 32 andcall centres 34, 33 are referred to in the description as endpoints.

[0024]FIG. 3 illustrates a known system for managing services using aplurality of service execution platforms in a telecommunicationsnetwork. Service execution platforms 1 a, 1 b, 1 c are used each ofwhich supports a variety of different services. A business customer hasto provide a call plan 20, 21, 22 for each of the service managers 17,18, 19. The business customer generates each call plan using an editorand interface provided by each of the respective equipmentmanufacturers. This of course carries overheads for the business user inlearning to use and operate three differing interfaces. Also there areoverheads incurred in duplication of parts of call plans for eachplatform. The business user will receive three reports of performancewhich will not be integrated to give an overall view of performance.

[0025] In order to allow call plans to use a service provided by oneservice execution platform and which is not supported by another, abusiness customer has to artificially (i.e. conceptually) divide thecall answering centres 8, 7, 9, 11 into a plurality of virtual networks14, 15, 16 such that each call plan 20, 21, 22 causes calls to be routedto an answering centre in a single one of the virtual networks. Forexample, in the simplified network of FIG. 2 the call plans could bedesigned such that call plan A 20 causes calls to be routed to ananswering centre 11 in virtual network 14, call plan B 21 causes callsto be routed to answering centre 8 in virtual network 16 and call plan C22 cause calls to be routed to answering centres 7, 9 in virtual network15. It will be appreciated that in a real more complicated network eachvirtual network would comprise tens or hundreds of answering centres.

[0026] However, in this prior art system it is very difficult to providea service using a combination of services supported by a plurality ofservice execution platforms. Problems occur if, for example using thecall plan illustrated in FIG. 2, day of week routing is supported onlyby service execution platform A 1 a, and proportional distribution issupported only by service execution platform B 1 b and service executionplatform C 1 c.

[0027]FIG. 4 illustrates a service management system according to thepresent invention. A single call plan 24 is used which may use serviceswhich are supported by a plurality of service execution platforms 1 a, 1b and 1 c. A single interface is used by the business customer. Theservice management system generates call plans according to rules whichindicate which platform supports which services, and which also indicatewhich endpoints are associated with which platform. Although theendpoints are still associated with a particular platform, as for theexample shown in FIG. 3, this is invisible to the user because by usingthe service manager of this invention the user can access any of theendpoints using any of the services available on any of the serviceexecution platforms.

[0028] An example of these rules, is shown in tabular form in FIG. 5a.In this case FIG. 5b (referring back to FIG. 2) shows that day of weekrouting 30 is available only on service execution platform A 1 a.Proportional distribution is available on service execution platform B 1b and also on service execution platform C 1 c. Answering Centre x 34and Answering Centre y 35 are associated with platform B 1 b. AnsweringPoint 32 is associated with platform A 1 a.

[0029] The service manager 23 operates using an algorithm as shown inthe flow charts of FIGS. 9 and 10, which will now be described withreference also to FIGS. 5, 6 and 7.

[0030]FIG. 9 is a flow chart showing the process carried out by theservice manager 23 in order to determine whether the service executionplatforms available are able to support a customer call plan. At step 91the call plan is transferred to the service manager 23. At step 92 theservice manager parses the call plan to identify all the endpointsrequired by that call plan. Then, for each endpoint, at steps 94 and 95the service manager 23 checks whether the endpoint is an answeringlocation already provided and being billed on the TelecommunicationsOperator's network. If not then the endpoint is provided as required atstep 96. At step 97 rules 98 determining which endpoints are associatedwith which network type (e.g. TDM or VoIP) are consulted, the networktype being associated with a particular service execution platform, todetermine which service execution platforms are going to be required toimplement the call plan. Steps 94 to 98 are repeated until at step 98 ait is determined that all the endpoints required by the call plan havebeen considered.

[0031] For each non-endpoint node at step 99 the call plan is parsed todetermine which services are required for the particular node underconsideration. At step 100 rules 101 are consulted to determine whichservice execution platforms may provide those services. If at step 102and 103 it is discovered that none of the service execution platformsavailable can support the services requested then the call plan isrejected at step 104. Steps 100 to 104 are repeated until at step 105 itis determined that all the non-endpoint nodes required by the call planhave been considered.

[0032] If the call plan is able to be implemented using the availableservice execution platforms then the call plan is implemented as shownin the flow chart of FIG. 10, and illustrated in FIGS. 5, 6 and 7.

[0033] At step 110 groups of contiguous service facilities which aresupported on a particular service execution platform are constructed.For example, referring to FIG. 5, day of week routing node 30 andanswering point 32 are associated with service execution platform A,proportional distribution node 31, answering centre x 34 and answeringcentre y 33 are supported by service execution platform B. Therefore itis possible to divide these nodes into two call plan segments asillustrated in FIG. 5b and indicated by reference numerals 35 and 36. Atstep 111 junctions between call plan segments are identified, and atstep 112 inter platform routing nodes are added to the call plan. Thisprocess is illustrated in FIG. 6 which illustrates the insertion of aninterplatform node Z 37 between call plan segment 35 and call plansegment 36. A new non-geographic number is used which acts as anendpoint as far as service execution platform A is concerned. This newnon-geographic number is handled by service execution platform B asillustrated in FIG. 7. In this example the number which is dialled bythe users is 0800 121212. The call is handled by platform A. If the callis received between Monday and Friday then the call is routed to‘endpoint’ 0800 232323 which is in fact another non geographic numberwhich is handled in turn by platform B, which supports proportionalrouting and routes the call as required. At steps 113 to 116 the callplan segments are provisioned onto the service execution platforms asrequired. So in the above example (referring to FIG. 7) the call plansegment shown in FIG. 7a will be provisioned onto service executionplatform A and the call plan segment shown in FIG. 7b will beprovisioned onto service execution platform B. A check for provisionfailure at step 114 (E.g. due to Power failure, faulty software,communications failure, sabotage, telco systems and switch failures)means that the customer call plan will be rejected in its entirety,rather than providing a part of the call plan which might leave thenetwork in an undefined state.

[0034]FIG. 8 illustrates a consolidated report provided by the servicemanager 23 using the example described above. FIG. 8a illustrates areport received from platforms A and FIG. 8b illustrates a reportreceived from platform B. FIG. 8c illustrates a consolidation of thesetwo reports. The effective call total is the total 25 number of callreceived on platform A. The lost call total is the sum of the lost callon both platforms. It will be appreciated this is a very simple exampleand consolidation of a real call plan have many call plan segments willbe much more complicated, although the principle will remain the same.

[0035] Although this description has been written with reference to abusiness customer it will be appreciated that an individual mayultimately be able to use services of supported by an intelligentnetwork, for example to route numbers according to a personal call plan.

[0036] Unless the context clearly requires otherwise, throughout thedescription and the claims, the words “comprise”, “comprising” and thelike are to be construed in an inclusive as opposed to an exclusive orexhaustive sense; that is to say, in the sense of “including, but notlimited to”.

1. A service management system for implementing a call plan using aplurality of service facilities suitable for use in a communicationsnetwork comprising: a plurality of rules describing how a plurality ofservice facilities maps on to a plurality of service executionplatforms; a processor for partitioning the call plan into a pluralityof call plan segments in dependence upon said rules, each call plansegment using service facilities supported by a single service platform;adding an interplatform routing node to said call plan segments, therouting node causing transfer of calls from one service platform toanother service platform; and transferring the call plan segments to theservice execution platform upon which those facilities are supported. 2.A service management system according to claim 1 in which theinterplatform routing node causes a call to be forwarded from a firstservice platform to a non-geographic number associated with a secondservice execution platform.
 3. A service management system according toclaim 1 or claim 2 further comprising a report manager for providing aconsolidated report relating to call statistics for a plurality ofservice execution platforms.
 4. A method of partitioning a call planinto call plan segments in which a call plan comprises a plurality ofservice facilities, resulting in an incoming call being routed to one ofa plurality of endpoints, and in which each service facility isassociated with a service execution platform, and in which each endpointis associated with a service execution platform; the method comprisingthe steps of constructing a plurality of call plan segments comprisingcontiguous service facilities associated with each particular serviceplatform; adding an interplatform routing node between each pair ofcontiguous service facilities where one service facility of such a pairis associated with a first platform and the other service facility ofthat pair is associated with a second platform; and adding aninterplatform routing node between each service facility associated witha first platform which routes the call to an endpoint associated with asecond platform node.
 5. A method according to claim 4, in which theinterplatform routing node causes a call to be forwarded from a firstservice platform to a non-geographic number associated with a secondservice execution platform.
 6. A method of consolidating call statisticreports from a plurality of service execution platforms, a callstatistic report comprising a plurality of entries relating to a timeinterval, each entry comprising an effective call count and an lost callcount, the method comprising the steps of determining a consolidatedeffective call count being equal to the maximum effective call count inthe plurality of call statistic reports for a given time interval; anddetermining a consolidated lost call count being equal to the sum of thelost call count in the plurality of call statistic reports for said timeinterval.
 7. A method of call distribution comprising the steps ofreceiving a call; routing the call according to a call plan segmentassociated with a first service execution platform; forwarding the callto a second service execution platform; and routing the call accordingto a second call plan segment associated with the second serviceexecution platform.